Business Problems of the 
Motive Power Department 


AN ADDRESS 


DELIVERED BY 


ROBERT QUAYLE, 

•• SUPERINTENDENT OF MOTIVE-POWER AND MACHINERY, 
CHICAGO & NORTHWESTERN 
RAILWAY COMPANY. 


CONSTITUTING ' NE OF A 

Series on Railway Subjects, 

GIVEN BEFORE 

Students of the engineering Departments 

OF 

PURDUE UNIVERSITY. 


Published by the University, 
LaFayette, Indiana, 
January, 1898. 



I 


TF507 




\ 





VIII. 


Business Problems of the 
Motive Power Department. 


Robert Quayle. 


S IXTY-FIVE years ago railroads were prac¬ 
tically unknown. History records their 
small beginnings with crude equipment. 
Strange looking locomotives were used that 
weighed hardly more than a modern dray. The 
cars were modeled from the stage coaches of 
that time, and they were run on track of the most 
flimsy character. The speeds were slow and the 
service very uncertain, but from this small and 
crude beginning evolved the world’s great sys¬ 
tems of rail transportation, which in this country 
alone aggregate over 184,000 miles of track, and 


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require in the conduct of its immense business 
36,000 locomotives, 34,000 passenger cars and 
1,200,000 freight cars, while the capital employed 
is calculated by hundreds of millions, and the 
great army of employes by hundreds of thou¬ 
sands. The development of the resources of our 
country resulting therefrom has been remarkable, 
and the advancement of civilization not less 
notable. 

It goes without saying that the financial and 
commercial problems involved in the creation and 
operation of these great properties—complicated 
as the situation often was by the fact that rail¬ 
road construction did not wait the development of 
the country, but was generally in the lead and 
opened up the way for it—have become complex 
in character and of great magnitude. 

It is not my purpose, however, to dwell upon 
the wonderfully rapid growth of our railroads, nor 
the effect upon the prosperity of our country, nor 
even upon the business and financial problems 
arising in the government of these great proper¬ 
ties as a whole, but rather to take the situation as 


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we find it to-day and to give you some insight into 
a few of the business problems of the motive- 
power departments of fairly large railroad corpo¬ 
rations. 

To many of you, who have for several years 
been studying various branches of engineering 
and fitting yourselves for battling successfully 
with the many technical problems that are sure 
to confront you in the practice of your chosen 
professions, it may appear as if the technical 
problems requiring solution by those in charge of 
motive power, are more numerous, if not more 
important, than the business problems they are 
called upon to solve. That this is not the case 
will be clear upon proper reflection. You have 
doubtless learned, under the excellent practical 
instruction you have received at this university, 
that every engineering question has its commer¬ 
cial and business side; and the importance of 
always seeing this side and giving it due promi¬ 
nence will be impressed upon you more and more as 
you add to your experience in the practice of your 
profession. In fact, every situation or condition of 


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affairs that requires the services of the engineer 
calls for the production by him of structures or 
mechanisms that will not only meet the require¬ 
ments of the situation but will do it with a mini¬ 
mum expenditure of capital, or will give the 
greatest returns from the investment. The suc¬ 
cessful engineer is he whose judgment is so 
trained that the capital of those who depend upon 
it will be wisely and safely invested. He must not 
only answer such questions as, “Can this or that 
be done?” and “How can it best be done?” but 
he must give equally reliable answers to such 
questions as, “Will it pay to do it?” Thus, the 
rule is that his engineering problems are closely 
interwoven with considerations of a commercial 
nature. The conduct of a motive-power depart¬ 
ment of a large railroad system forms no excep¬ 
tion to this rule. 

In the earlier days of railroading the duties of ' 
General Manager, Superintendent, Master Me¬ 
chanic, etc., were usually performed by one per¬ 
son, but as the business became more extensive 
it was found necessary to divide the work among 


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several men, each with specific duties and respon¬ 
sibilities, and as the business still further in¬ 
creased, the division of the duties became more 
complete, and the organization was separated 
into numerous departments, each with a certain 
designated work to perform, and the work of all to 
be directed to the welfare of the organization as a 
whole. The mechanical or motive-power depart¬ 
ment is one of these several departments in such 
an organization, and its duties involve the design, 
construction, maintenance, and operation of the 
locomotive and the supervision of the men who 
operate it, except as these men come under the 
rules and direction of the operating department. 
The end for which the department was created is 
of course that of keeping the wheels turning. It 
must be apparent, however, that as one of the 
many departments it is necessary to make the 
work of this one to fit into the needs of the oth¬ 
ers, and to so conduct its own affairs as to bring 
them in harmony with the aims and resources of 
the organization as a whole. This might properly 
be designated as the grand business problem of 


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the department. The department is not an iso¬ 
lated organization, but is closely interwoven, in 
its work and interests, with the operating and 
other departments, and to successfully carry on 
its business there is need of a breadth of mind 
that will clearly discern the relations of the mo¬ 
tive power to other departments, and the effect of 
any given policy within the department upon the 
work of the others; for a policy that looks all 
right when viewed only from the standpoint of 
the single department may be all wrong when 
considered in its effect upon the organization as a 
whole. If the carrying out of a certain policy 
would result in a saving in the mechanical depart¬ 
ment of $10,000 per year, but would involve ex¬ 
penditures in other departments of $10,500, it 
would not be justified, unless the benefit to the 
company through the improvement of its service 
would be worth the $500 increased expenditure. 
Thus at the outset we find that what we might 
call the external relations of the department form 
a problem that can be solved only by the applica¬ 
tion of strictly business principles, and we will 


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see later on that the effect is so far-reaching as to 
have an influence even on locomotive designs and 
shop practices. To ignore these facts is to travel 
in ruts that are constantly narrowing and deepen¬ 
ing until the best work of the mechanical depart¬ 
ment is wholly lost to the company. 

Before turning to the problems within the de¬ 
partment it may be well to give you some idea of 
its expenses, from which you can judge of the 
magnitude of its problems. The average cost of 
the locomotives may be placed at $9,000, while 
the average capital expenditure per locomotive for 
round houses, shops, tools, etc., is in the neigh¬ 
borhood of $5,000. Thus each locomotive and 
the equipment necessary to take care of it repre¬ 
sents an approximate expenditure of $14,000. 

The cost of the operation of the locomotive in¬ 
cludes the fuel, oil, waste, enginemen’s wages, 
round-house labor, cost of repairs and supplies. 
The cost of the fuel varies in different localities, 
being less than one dollar per ton for coal in some 
eastern districts and more than five dollars in 
parts of the far west. If, however, we assume 


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an average of $1.75 per ton for coal we will not 
be far out of the way. 

We will also assume that an engine runs 26 
miles to a ton of coal, and makes 36,000 miles per 
year; then the cost of fuel per annum will be 
$2,423. The wages of the engineer and fireman 
will average about 6.2 cents per mile, and all 
round-house labor will average about 1.4 cents 
per mile, or a total for labor of 7.6 cents per mile, 
or $2,736 per year. The oil and waste will cost 
about .2 cent per mile, or $72 per year. The 
repairs and supplies will cost approximately 4 
cents per mile, or a total of $1,440 per year. 
The cost of water we will estimate at .2 cent per 
mile, or $72 per year. We thus find the several 
items of “cost of operation” to aggregate $6,743, 
exclusive of all interest charges on capital em¬ 
ployed. It is not unusual for large railroad sys¬ 
tems to possess 500 locomotives, and quite a 
number of them own more than 1,000. From the 
above figures it will be seen that the operation of 
500 locomotives calls for an average expenditure, 


234 



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through the mechanical department, of $3,371,- 
500, and for 1,000 engines the sum becomes 
$6,743,000 per year. It is, therefore, needless 
to say that in the expenditure of such large sums 
as these, and the treatment of a portion of a com¬ 
pany’s business so important and having such an 
important bearing on its interests, every prob¬ 
lem, no matter what its character, has its business 
side as distinguished from its narrower or purely 
technical nature. 

Turning now to affairs within the department, 
we find that there are several important problems 
in connection with the operation of the locomotive 
and the service it renders the company. We all 
look upon the locomotive with a great deal of 
sentiment, the proof of which is constantly forth¬ 
coming in the interest manifested in its perform¬ 
ance. Every account of a fast run is read with 
interest by the general public, as well as by the 
railroad men, and we are thrilled by the records 
of great bursts of speed made on the rails. The 
modern locomotive, with its great boiler and gen 
erally massive and powerful appearance, hauling 


235 


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a passenger train of ten or twelve long, heavy 
cars at the rate of forty-five or fifty miles per 
hour, gives an impression of majesty and power 
not soon forgotten by the observer, who is only 
far enough away from it to be safe. And as we 
stand in the depots in some of our large cities and 
see these trains arrive, at the end of their long 
and rapid journeys of one thousand miles or 
more, often on time to the minute, and realize 
that in daylight and darkness, sunshine or storm, 
they sweep over great plains, and over or through 
mountain ranges, sometimes toiling slowly and 
powerfully up heavy grades only to dash with 
renewed speed down the mountain sides and into 
the valleys, that this great burden has been car¬ 
ried such immense distances in safety by ma¬ 
chinery that is the creation of man’s ingenuity 
and industry, we feel that it is indeed wonderful. 
Our great freight locomotives, of slower speed 
but of much greater weight and power, also en¬ 
gage our attention as we see them coupled to 
fifty, sixty, or more, loaded cars working heroic¬ 
ally to reach their destination on time. 


236 


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Many students of the steam engine are inter¬ 
ested in the performance of the locomotive as a 
heat motor and peruse carefully the figures for the 
coal and water consumption obtained by elaborate 
tests, and are gratified to note the economy ob¬ 
tained as the result of gradual improvement in 
design. The motive-power official may possess 
his share of sentiment, and certainly should be 
alive to all improvements that will increase the 
economy of the locomotive as a heat engine, but 
he must also look upon his motive power from afar 
more business-like standpoint. He must consider 
the locomotive as a machine—a tool created for a 
purpose—representing a large investment of capi¬ 
tal and costing annually a considerable sum for its 
operation, and must be deeply concerned in mak¬ 
ing it give the largest possible return to the com¬ 
pany. If to attain this end he must violate, in 
the construction or operation of the engine, prin¬ 
ciples which he knows tend toward economy of 
water and fuel, it is his business to do it. And I 
have no hesitation in saying that to the carrying 
out of this wise and business-like policy are due 


237 


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■some features of locomotive practice that are 
sometimes condemned by those who are apt to 
look upon the subject entirely from the standpoint 
of economy in fuel. 

Perhaps I can best illustrate this business prob¬ 
lem by a comparison which every motive power 
official has had to make at some time, in connec¬ 
tion with the rating of his engines. The tests 
that have been made upon the locomotive in the 
testing laboratory of this university demonstrate 
that the most economical point of cut-off is be¬ 
tween one-quarter and one-third of the stroke. 
Other tests made on this same plant show that 
as the locomotive boiler is forced and the rate of 
combustion increased, the rate of evaporation 
falls off rapidly. The conclusion is therefore 
warranted that with a given speed a cut-off later 
than one-third of the stroke will result in a loss 
of economy, both in the boiler and the cylinders. 
Are we, therefore, warranted in endeavoring to 
operate our locomotives under these conditions of 
maximum fuel economy? The work of the en¬ 
gine varies so much with the grades that we can 


238 


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not expect to run at a uniform rate of cut-off, but 
is it economy to endeavor to give the locomotive 
such a load that it will average one-quarter to one- 
third cut-off? Let us look into the question. 
Suppose ours is a nineteen inch engine in freight 
service on a hilly division and that under a limita¬ 
tion of the average cut-off to one-third, the ton¬ 
nage which it can haul over the division is six 
hundred tons, exclusive of its own weight and 
that of the way car. Let us further assume that 
if the engine is worked to its utmost capacity 
on the ruling grades, even if by so doing we 
must run it for many miles at from one-half 
to full stroke, we will be able to haul seven 
hundred and fifty tons. The train and engine 
crews’ wages will amount to about 13.2 cents 
per mile or $13.20 per one hundred miles. 
When hauling the heavier train we are getting. 
25 per cent, more tonnage over the division for 
the same cost in wages, and thereby effecting a 
saving of $3.30 for each hundred miles the seven 
hundred and fifty tons are hauled. This is a 
clear gain in operating expenses. Now, let us 


239 


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look at the actual consumption of fuel and in 
doing this we must bear in mind that while 
our nominal weights of trains are six hundred, 
and seven hundred and fifty tons, respectively, 
the real weights, allowing one hundred tons 
for the engine and tender and fifteen tons for 
the waycar, are seven hundred and fifteen, and 
eight hundred and sixty-five tons, respectively. 
Evidently the weights of the engine, tender 
and waycar form a fixed quantity in our calcula¬ 
tions and that the heavier the train the less 
the percentage of the total work of the engine 
needed to overcome their resistance, and the in¬ 
ternal resistance of the engine. Evidently the 
coal consumption in our comparison should be 
figured on the basis of the tonnage of the cars and 
their contents only, for upon this is based the 
earnings of the train. For the six hundred ton 
train the coal consumption may be taken at say 
seventeen pounds of coal per hundred ton-miles, 
or ten thousand two hundred pounds to haul 
the train one hundred miles. For the seven 
hundred and fifty ton train .the consumption 


240 


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per hundred ton-miles will be about one and 
one-half pounds less, or say fifteen and five-tenths 
pounds per hundred ton-miles. In other words, 
the lesser percentage of the total work of the en 
gine expended upon itself, its tender and the way- 
car, more than offsets the increased consumption 
of coal per indicated horse power. The total con¬ 
sumption for the seven hundred and fifty tons 
hauled one hundred miles will be about eleven 
thousand six hundred and twenty-five pounds. 
Thus, while the total consumption of coal per trip 
is of course greater for the heavier train, the con¬ 
sumption per hundred ton-miles is less; conse¬ 
quently the fuel bill to haul three thousand tons of 
cars and contents will be less if it is taken over 
the road in four trains of seven hundred and fifty 
tons instead of five trains of six hundred tons. So 
we have saved money in both wages and fuel per 
hundred ton-miles. But the question is broader 
still. Evidently fewer engines resulting in a lesser 
investment are required; furthermore, while the 
cost of repairs per mile run by the engine may be 
greater, the cost per hundred ton-miles of train 


241 


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hauled will be less. Again, the fewer engines will 
mean a smaller investment in round houses, shops, 
machinery, etc., and last, but not least, the opera¬ 
ting expenses will be reduced in more ways than 
train crew wages, and the liability of accident will 
be lessened by the fewer number of trains. Thus 
the broader the light in which this question is 
viewed the greater the economy of working the 
locomotive beyond the point of maximum economy 
per indicated horse power. 

That this view of this business problem is correct 
will be acceded to by every motive-power official. 
The situation may appear to you to be paradox¬ 
ical, particularly in regard to the item of fuel, 
but that coal can be saved by loading an engine 
heavily we have proof of daily. The road with 
which the writer is connected keeps an individual 
coal record by which the consumption of coal per 
hundred ton-miles by each engineer is recorded. 
In a group of men in comparable freight service 
on one division the best performance in November 
last was fifteen and nine-tenths pounds per hun¬ 
dred ton-miles, the engineer having an average 


242 


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train of eight hundred and fifty-three tons. The 
poorest record was twenty-eight and seven-tenths 
pounds, but the average train was only three 
hundred and seventy-eight tons. Of course 
there are differences in engines, which was true 
in this case, but all our coal accounts support the 
statement that, other things being equal, the 
heavier the train the less the consumption per 
hundred ton-miles. The limit to this rule is not 
reached before the engine is so overloaded that 
the required time can not be made. So evident 
is this to our engineers that they are anxious to 
haul the heaviest trains of which their engines are 
capable, as by this means only will their records 
compare favorably with others in the same class 
of work. 

This same mode of reasoning, by which the 
work of the engine is viewed by its effect upon 
the net cost of hauling tonnage rather than its 
economy in fuel per horse power, must apply to 
other questions involved in locomotive construc¬ 
tion and operation. On this basis the size of 
locomotives have been constantly increasing and 


243 


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will continue to increase. Anything which adds 
to the economy of performance, but limits the 
amount of work that can be obtained from the 
engine, either by reducing the tonnage it can 
haul per trip or reducing the mileage it can make 
per year, can not hope to succeed. If a compli¬ 
cated valve gear would save five or ten per cent, 
in fuel, but would cause the engine to miss a trip 
occasionally because of repairs necessary to the 
mechanism, the loss of the service of the engine 
to the company in busy seasons would possibly 
more than offset the saving in fuel. On the 
other hand, simple, strong and reliable construc¬ 
tion of the locomotive, facilities for quickly repair¬ 
ing it, and everything that will add to its useful 
mileage per year, is worthy of careful study. At 
the same time the necessity of meeting these 
conditions does not relieve the motive power offi¬ 
cial of getting the greatest possible economy out 
of the locomotive as an engine, after he has met 
the conditions noted, and if he does his whole 
duty he will be eager enough, in his attempt to 


244 


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obtain this economy, to satisfy the most enthusi¬ 
astic student of the steam engine. 

In connection with the shops and the work done 
in them there are numerous business problems. 
It is not given to every superintendent of motive 
power to locate and build up a great plant that 
shall meet the company’s needs. But when such 
a plant is to be built, the same business consider¬ 
ations obtain as in the creation of a manufactur¬ 
ing establishment. Most of us, however, find on 
the roads we serve a more or less complete equip¬ 
ment of round houses and shops, with which we 
must do the best we can. Oftentimes these 
shops, in their location, size and character of their 
buildings, are far from being perfect, not neces¬ 
sarily because some one blundered when they 
were built, but because no one could foresee the 
extent of the growth of the company’s business 
and the extension of its track and equipment. 
Furthermore, as most of our large railroad systems 
have reached their present size by the consolida 
tion and absorption of smaller lines, each of which, 
when independent, had shops of its own, it is not 


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surprising to find a system provided with many 
shops, more or less completely equipped for doing 
the work of general repairs, and yet not one of 
them with all the facilities for doing work cheaply 
and on a large scale. This situation presents 
another business problem. The round houses, 
also, may have been originally located with refer¬ 
ence to the needs of the short lines now consoli¬ 
dated into the larger system, and with the prac¬ 
tice of having our locomotive runs average but 
little more than one hundred miles, which pre¬ 
vailed until recent years, these houses may all be 
in use. Again, we have a business problem 
before us. Every such point involves certain 
expenditures for superintendence, etc., and the 
smaller the number of locomotives handled at a 
given point the higher the ratio of these expendi¬ 
tures to the total outlay. Then the cost of dis¬ 
patching and round-house labor is not dependent 
upon the length of the run the locomotive has 
made, but is as great for a trip of one hundred 
miles as it is for two hundred miles. Conse¬ 
quently, where division terminals can be so 


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changed as to give the locomotives longer runs, 
round houses can be closed, resulting in a consid¬ 
erable reduction in the amount of labor required 
to handle locomotives at terminals, as well as a 
material reduction in the cost of the labor remain¬ 
ing to be done in the houses retained. Another 
advantage gained is the greater mileage that can 
be obtained from locomotives when the runs are 
lengthened. 

If we find the number and equipment of the 
shops to be as already indicated, a change will be 
necessary, if the cost of repairs is to be reduced 
to a minimum. You will remember that we as¬ 
sumed the repairs would cost four cents per mile. 
That amounts to #1,440 per locomotive per an¬ 
num, or $1,440,000 per 1,000 locomotives. If 
we can reduce the figure by one-half cent per 
mile, the cost per annum will be reduced by 
$180,000. To effect such a reduction we must 
have improved machinery and up-to-date meth¬ 
ods. But much of this machinery, if installed in 
a small shop, would be idle most of the time—so 


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much of the time that it might not pay to pur¬ 
chase it unless more work can be found for it. 
To illustrate : Suppose a railroad finds it has no 
boiler shop that is properly equipped for econom¬ 
ical work; at one of its main shops it takes out 
antiquated machinery, such as old punches and 
shears, single-spindle post-drills, bending rolls, 
operated by hand, etc., and in the place of this 
machinery is installed a powerful punch with 
throat deep enough to permit reaching the center 
of the widest sheet to be operated upon, a mod¬ 
ern shear, an hydraulic riveting machine with at 
least a twelve-foot gap, multiple-spindle drills, 
power bending rolls, an hydraulic flanging ma¬ 
chine, and other modern machinery, including 
traveling cranes. All hand work is now reduced 
to a minimum, and the shop is prepared to do the 
best of boiler work with great economy over the 
old methods. When this is accomplished it will 
be found that the shop is capable of doing a much 
larger amount of work than formerly; in fact it 
can probably do the heavy boiler work for 800 
locomotives, even if in its equipment there was 


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installed only one of each of the more important 
tools. It will not pay to improve every boiler 
shop on the road in this manner, nor will it be 
necessary. By concentrating the heavy boiler 
work at a few places the maximum of economy 
can be obtained and with the minimum capital in¬ 
vested in tools. And so we might go through the 
blacksmith shop, machine shop and other shops 
and find many similar cases where the introduction 
of improved machinery and methods must go hand- 
in-hand with a concentration of the class or classes 
of work affected thereby. 

Now nothing is more certain than the need of 
modern methods and first-class machinery in rail¬ 
road shops; from which it follows that concen¬ 
tration of work must be accomplished, at least to 
the extent of keeping properly employed this 
modern machinery. This leads us to turn our 
attention to the small shops on the various divis¬ 
ions, with a view of deciding how much of the 
work performed in them can be profitably trans¬ 
ferred to the larger and better equipped shops. 


249 


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We may find that with proper round-house facili¬ 
ties for making the running repairs, some of them 
can be closed entirely. In such cases we gain 
not only the benefit of a lower cost on the work 
thus transferred to a better equipped shop, but 
we save in such items as light, heat, power, su¬ 
perintendence, etc. As superintendence itself is 
a large item—amounting to about ten per cent, of 
the total expenses of the department—the saving 
in this direction is not inconsiderable. There will 
still remain, however, numerous shops that must 
be maintained, and in which certain classes of 
repairs can be as cheaply done as in the main 
shops. It will be found economical, nevertheless, 
to take from them the heaviest classes of repair 
work, and also to relieve them of the manufactur¬ 
ing of much of the standard materials. 

Perhaps I have used the word manufacturing 
unadvisedly, for if each outside shop is allowed 
to furnish all the new parts necessary in the course 
of its repair work there will be little manufactur¬ 
ing done. When a locomotive is overhauled, 
such parts as driving boxes, shoes and wedges, 


250 


25 


rods, crank pins, cross-heads, etc., need more or 
less work done upon them to take up the wear, 
and evidently such work never can be put upon 
a manufacturing basis. Here and there a new 
crosshead, crank pin, driving box or other part is 
needed, but in many shops the number required 
at any one time is too small to introduce the labor- 
saving methods that would be possible if they 
were made in quantity. Evidently, however, if 
the main shop undertook to supply these parts in 
a finished condition to all the outlying shops, they 
could be made in such quantities as to greatly re¬ 
duce their cost. This, I believe, is what should 
be done, and to a larger extent than is usually 
practiced. The main shops should undertake to 
make on a large scale as many of the new parts 
required in repairs over the system as the con¬ 
ditions will admit of, and this work should be 
done upon a manufacturing basis so far as prac¬ 
ticable. By this means the cost is reduced and 
there is every incentive to keep on cheapening 
the work and raising the quality of it by special 


251 


26 


and ingenious methods, by templates, jigs, special 
cutters and other tools. 

To carry out this policy, two things are neces¬ 
sary : A standardizing of the parts of the various 
locomotives owned by the company, and liberal 
appropriations for the machinery needed in the 
work. The appropriations are matters which 
must be settled by the management. Without 
them these economies can not be effected and it is 
a matter of regret at times that there is not more 
money forthcoming for these purposes. But we 
will assume that this matter has been satisfac¬ 
torily disposed of and consider for a moment the 
work of standardizing. 

When you stop to think of the rapid changes 
that have taken place in locomotive design in the 
last ten years, by which steam pressures have 
been increased about fifty pounds and the size 
and weight of locomotives greatly augmented, 
you will readily understand that railroad com¬ 
panies which have purchased many engines in 
that time have a variety of designs in service. 
The consolidation of companies has in some cases 


252 


27 


added to the variety of equipment under the care 
of the motive-power department. To manufac¬ 
ture parts for these engines it is necessary to use 
the same patterns and sizes on as many engines 
as possible. By so doing the quantity of stock 
required to be kept on hand will be less—a most 
important consideration. To show you the need 
that may exist for standardizing and what can be 
accomplished I will quote you a few of the results 
obtained along this line in the motive-power de¬ 
partment with which I am connected. 

We have reduced to one or two sizes most of 
our cocks and valves, oil cups, injector checks,, 
glands and all other brass work and small parts. 
At one time we had 113 different kinds of cabs on 
the 1,010 engines owned by the company; now 
their number has been reduced to nine. Pilots at 
one time were built of fifteen different heights; 
now there are but three. The number of kinds and 
sizes of smoke stacks have been reduced from 
legion to four. Two patterns of exhaust pipes 
have replaced forty-five old ones. Ten cross¬ 
head patterns take the place of twenty formerly 


253 


28 


used. Three standard eccentrics take the place 
of eleven needed heretofore. Sixteen cylinder 
head casings and seven cylinder head patterns 
have been discarded; also, six steam chests and 
casings. Six standard wheel centers now take 
the place of twenty-two formerly used. And so 
I might go through the entire list, but those al¬ 
ready mentioned are enough to indicate the great 
saving that can be accomplished both in the stocks 
carried and the cost of production. Not a week 
passes without seeing more of this work accom¬ 
plished ; and yet, in it all, one must be constantly 
on the alert for improvements and must not hold 
these standards too sacred. They have to be 
discarded occasionally if we are to profit by our 
own experience and that of others. But with 
both large and small parts properly standardized 
and special tools and methods introduced, prac¬ 
tically all the small standard parts can be manu¬ 
factured at one shop and many of the large parts 
can be produced in the same way. 

Some roads do nothing but repair work in their 
shops, but a few undertake to build quite a number 


254 


29 


of their own engines. Rebuilding of locomo¬ 
tives is carried on to some extent in nearly every 
railroad shop. Where to draw the line in rebuild¬ 
ing it is difficult to determine. By this term I do 
not mean the making of extensive repairs and yet 
retaining the original design. Most roads find 
themselves possessed of engines of moderate size,, 
provided with boilers much too small for the cyl¬ 
inders, and carrying a low steam pressure. If 
these engines were rebuilt and given new boilers 
the tractive weight and power would be largely 
increased by the larger boiler and higher steam 
pressure. Whether it is advisable to do this de¬ 
pends upon the service the rebuilt engines are 
intended for. Perhaps I can best illustrate the 
manner in which this matter should be viewed by 
taking actual cases. A road needs for its passen¬ 
ger service an engine, the equivalent in power of 
a seventeen inch engine carrying 180 pounds of 
steam. Its modern power is all large and the 
seventeen and eighteen inch engines owned by it 
will not do the work because the boilers are too 
small and they only carry 140 to 150 pounds steam 


255 


30 


pressure. To rebuild one of these seventeen inch 
engines, giving it a new boiler, will cost, say four 
thousand five hundred dollars. I believe it will 
pay to do it, if the machinery is heavy enough 
for the higher pressure, as a new engine for the 
service required will cost about eight thousand 
dollars. We save not only the difference in 
the cost, but we have one less small engine on 
our hands. But suppose we expect to use these 
rebuilt engines in freight service and have no 
particular place for them, but only contemplate 
increasing their capacity by the rebuilding, we 
would gain about twenty per cent, in power by 
the change. If the tractive power of the old 
engine be expressed by the number ioo, then 
three engines rebuilt would have a total tractive 
power of 360. The cost of rebuilding the three 
engines would be thirteen thousand five hundred 
dollars. Now if we leave the old engines as they 
are and spend eleven thousand five hundred 
dollars of this money in purchasing a heavy 
modern freight engine we will be able to get one 
with a tractive power represented by 175, and 


256 


3i 


we would then have four engines, three old and 
one new, with a combined tractive power repre¬ 
sented by 475, or an average of 118.75 P er 
engine. If we should scrap one of the seventeen 
inch engines we would have three engines with a 
tractive power of 375, or an average of 125. 
Thus we find that for two thousand dollars less 
money we can, by purchasing new power and 
keeping all our old power, get almost exactly the 
same average tractive power as by rebuilding, and 
that if we would scrap one old engine for each 
new one purchased the average tractive power of 
our engines would be considerably increased over 
what we could obtain by rebuilding. Evidently 
the figures are against rebuilding except where 
the rebuilt engines will fit into some particular 
place, generally in passenger service. 

1 have shown you enough of the work of the 
motive-power department to make it evident that 
to successfully carry on a business as large as we 
have been considering, a complete and thorough 
organization is necessary. The peculiar charac¬ 
ter of the work, involving shop management 


257 


32 


on the one hand and the control of a large body 
of men and the movement of many locomotives 
on the other, maintenance of the locomotives 
already owned and the designing of new ones,, 
and the necessity of carrying on some of this 
work at points widely separated from each other, 
are all arguments against the possibility of any 
one man giving the details of this work his per¬ 
sonal supervision. And to trust these details to 
others, a unity of purpose and practice is required. 
The business at each point must be conducted as 
a part of the great whole and not on independent 
lines. Improved methods or designs worked out 
at one point should become the practice at all 
others, if capable of more than a local application 
in this manner only can advantage be taken of 
the ability and ingenuity of those in charge at 
each and every point. Without this unity, stand¬ 
ards would soon be disregarded and would be of 
little value because they would not be based upon 
the experience of the whole department. A suc¬ 
cessful organization must not only assign to each 
person in it certain responsibilities and duties, but 


258 


33 

it must be of such a character as to utilize the 
best work of each one. By giving to all as much 
of a voice in shaping the policies of the depart¬ 
ment as is consistent with the responsibility 
which must rest with the head of the department, 
I believe the best results will be obtained. If the 
men in charge at the various offices of a large 
department are asked to carry out instructions 
issued from headquarters without being consulted 
as to the effect of such instructions upon their 
work, the faithfulness with which they may carry 
out orders will never compensate for the loss to 
the department of the judgment and experience 
of these men, and the free expression of opinion 
which should prevail. Without attempting - to 
lead you into the details of organization, I can 
assure you that, after the selection of capable 
men to fill the various positions of responsibility, 
an organization that will call out the hearty co¬ 
operation of each and every one of them is essen¬ 
tial to the success of the work. 

Co-operation, however, should not be confined 
to those in official positions. The further this 


259 


34 


spirit of co-operation can extend into the rank and 
file of the department, the better it is for the 
company, its officers and the men themselves. 
This desirable result can be brought about by 
honest, fair dealing toward the men by those in 
authority over them. There is a wonderful 
amount of loyalty on the part of the men towards 
a great railway corporation that always endeavors 
to treat them justly, and fortunate is the company 
that wins that loyalty. Its value can not be 
computed. Many corporations, and many offi¬ 
cials possess it, and they have won it without 
yielding any of their own rights to the men, but 
simply by according them justice at all times. We 
need to bear in mind constantly that our employes 
are men and that a large percentage of them are 
manly men and should be treated as such. With 
this thought directing our dealings with them we 
cherish those much-to-be-desired relations between 
employer and employe, that conserve the interests 
of both. 

Statistics are usually so uninteresting that I 
have made but little use of them this evening. 


260 


35 


Properly kept they are, however, of great value. 
By their use the business of the department can 
be grasped in its entirety. But in order that they 
should not mislead, they must not only be accu¬ 
rate, but must be on the right basis. In the past 
nearly all of the statistical work of the depart¬ 
ment has been computed on the engine-mile basis. 
In many respects this is most undesirable, as the 
engine-mile is far from being a constant unit. 
The ton-mile is a much better basis for much of 
our statistical work. Already we have placed all 
our coal records on this basis, and it is probably 
only a question of time when repairs and supplies 
will be computed in like manner. The impor¬ 
tance of this matter is nicely illustrated in our 
coal records. On the engine-mile basis the engi¬ 
neer who hauled the lightest train made the finest 
showing, other things being equal. On the ton- 
mile basis the man who hauls the heaviest train 
may expect to have the best record. Thus we 
furnish an incentive to actual economy of opera¬ 
tion, instead of putting a premium on extrava¬ 
gance. Furthermore, you can readily see that if 

261 


3 6 

we had not considered the ton-miles we would not 
have seen any economy in fuel in our 750-ton 
train, as compared with a 6oo-ton train, in our 
example of engine-rating. The value of the 
ton-mile statistics are also illustrated by the 
records heavy modern power is making on many 
roads. When these engines are first put in serv¬ 
ice the men find they burn a large amount of coal 
per mile run, and use more oil than the smaller 
engines. Computing their fuel supplies and re¬ 
pairs on the ton-mile basis, however, the perform¬ 
ance is seen to be a wonderful improvement over 
the smaller engines, and fully justifies their use 
on divisions whose business is heavy enough to 
properly utilize them. It will be clear upon re¬ 
flection that the statistics on the ton-mile basis 
would determine the true cost for a unit of work ; 
and furthermore, as this unit is also a fairly accu¬ 
rate measure of the value of the service rendered 
the company, we are able at all times to deter¬ 
mine with a fair degree of accuracy the cost of 
the locomotive performance per unit of revenue- 
producing service. 


262 


37 


In my address to you this evening I have en¬ 
deavored to keep within the limits of the subject 
assigned to me, and have avoided as much as 
possible the discussion of technical matters. The 
business problems of the motive power depart¬ 
ment are so numerous, however, that it would 
have been impossible in the time at my disposal 
to have touched even lightly upon them all. I 
have preferred, therefore, to take up only a few 
that confront us, with the hope that they would 
demonstrate how essential is the proper solution of 
such problems to the success of the work of the de¬ 
partment. These problems are not new, and in the 
near future some of them may cease to exist, their 
place being taken by others, brought about by new 
conditions and the rapid progress being made in 
economic railroad operation. The tendency of pas¬ 
senger and freight rates is steadily downward, and 
that the railroads may live on the reduced rates 
the cost of operation must decrease likewise. The 
motive-power department must contribute its share 
to the reduction of expenses, and must do it by 
giving careful attention to its business problems. 


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